Nightbeat could see the distress and anger on Smokescreen's face at the revelation of Shatter and Dropkick's betrayal; he had a feeling that this revelation had hit him on a personal level, though he was unsure as to how personal and thus he took it upon himself to ask the young member about it. "What is your relationship with Shatter and Dropkick?"
"They were my mentors, they taught me almost everything I know and you could say they were the closest thing I had to a family." Smokescreen said.
This was a glaring red flag in the eyes of Nightbeat, there was no way he was letting Smokescreen anywhere near Shatter and Dropkick. "I'm afraid you'll have to sit this one out Smokescreen, you're too attached." he knew that Smokescreen hated that he was not going to be allowed to confront his mentors, but it was for his own good "Trust me kid, if it weren't for the fact that they were your mentors I would let you confront them. But because they are, I'm worried they might manipulate your emotions."
Smokescreen clenched his fist before letting out a sigh, "You're right, but are you really going to confront them alone, it's going to be dangerous."
"That's why I'm bringing Siren with me, he's had my back on numerous occasions." Nightbeat assured Smokescreen, though he knew that he didn't find much comfort in that assurance "Listen I'll call you if this gets out of hand." he said before exiting the room.
Siren was… an interesting bot to say the least, sure he was one of closest friends next to hosehead but he was just so damned loud. Never in the 321 years that Nightbeat has been alive, never has he ever met anybody louder than the Sonic Canyon native. Though there was one good thing Siren's loudmouth did: it had the enjoyable perk of putting perps on edge, which made him a natural good cop/ bad cop routine, he just hoped it would work on Shatter and Dropkick.
Nightbeat had told Siren to meet him at the armory to pick up some riot class EMP shotguns, he had no plan on using the weapons Shatter and Dropkick but he needed some form of a back up plan to subdue the two in case things go awry and there was no other option than to put them into stasis-lock. When he had arrived at the armoury, he saw that Siren had grabbed more than a fair share of firearms. "Got the riot shotties you wanted."
"And then some I see." Nightbeat commented, as he looked upon the firepower in his friend's possession; aside from the two EMP shotguns, Siren had grabbed a Scatter Blaster, a CO2 shotgun, a plasma blast rifle, two photon pistols and two subsonic screamer pistols. "I don't think we need that much fire power, we're only confronting two bots."
"Well those 'two bots' are members of the elite guard and were under the tutelage of Sentinel Prime, and because of that I don't want a repeat of the Sentinel fiasco, we lost so many good bots trying to apprehend that traitor."
Nightbeat sighed, he remembered Sentinel's betrayal all too well. It was at the start of the war, Megatron had bested and killed Colossus Clench in the gladiatorial arena to claim leadership of the decepticons. Soon after Senator Xeon was assassinated in public by the Bruticus Gestalt squad from the Combaticon mercenary company, not long after the body of Treasury minister Ratbat had been found with his spark seemingly ripped from his chest cavity. When the news came to Sentinel, he betrayed both the Elite guard and the council of elders by surrendering the both Reflector AI and the remaining legion of Deactivated Scrap Face drones from the Quintesson occupation to Megatron; following that Sentinel and five squads of vehicons would then stage an attack on the council building, all twenty five guardsmen posted in the building were mercilessly slaughtered and soon Elders Traachon, Xaaron and Tomaandi being held captive. In response Iacon's City Commander Dai Atlas and his Deputy, Ultra Magnus had assembled a volunteer task force to apprehend the traitorous Prime. This task force consisted of Himself, Siren, Optimus, the Protectobots, Ratchet, Roadblock and thirteen other volunteers. It was a massacre upon arrival within the first twelve kilocycles they had five volunteers had been picked off by Vehicon snipers, thirty one kilo cycles later they had managed to enter the building but in the process lost Stakeout and roadblock. When they finally reached the rogue Prime seven more volunteers were wiped out and Dai Atlas was forced into Stasis lock and Nightbeat lost his old leg due to a blast from Sentinel's Cosmic rust cannon during the shoot out. The battle ended when Optimus and Ultra Magnus were forced to fatally shoot Sentinel.
"I guess you're, but I don't want plan A to be violence in this situation. There's too much of a risk of collateral damage." Nightbeat said, it was one thing that the Decepticons already know about the ark, but it would be a whole new can on scraplets if they collaterally handicap the ark before they even take off "We need to be delicate with our approach, how about we just take riot shotties, the subsonic pistols and a couple EMP charges and just leave the rest okay?"
Siren stared at him for a bit before relenting and putting away the armaments "Fine, but in case we die I just want to tell you that I told you so." the louder bot groaned.
"Let's just get to them before it's too late." Nightbeat said as he started walking.
By the time they had reached Shatter and Dropkick's quarters, an uneasy feeling started to bubble in Nightbeat's fuel tank, things seemed eerily quiet; he and Siren couldn't hear a single one of Dropkick's usual loud outbursts coming from there. Cautiously he approached the door and used the door's buzzer, no response, he tried knocking next- second verse, same as the first, damn. "Initiate door breaching maneuver." he ordered, Siren nodded and placed an EMP charge on the panel. Once the device went off and forced the door open, he and Siren entered the room; the first thing they noticed was that it was pitch black, then they noticed something flickering from the side, they turned their heads and saw that it was Shatter and Dropkick's eyes. They then noticed that something was wrapped around their necks, not too long a large green glow appeared behind the two members of the elite guard- by the all spark, it was a robo-smasher!